I've decided to keep the site online for the foreseeable future as a reference for Elantra owners. If you'd like to help with costs or still believe in this resource, please use the Donate link to help out. Thank you.

Ok so your interested in autocross and you want more info about it. well here it is:

Assuming you know the basics of autocrossing here is the info that you will want to know. the average cost is anywhere from 20-35$ for a event. just depends on the group you run with. you will need a helmet and normally the club has ones you can rent. you will want to get there fairly early. if the racing starts at noon you probaly want to be there around 9:30-10.

Our cars in stock for all fall under the HS class. classing From there with simples mods like a CAI you move to STS (street touring - S). this is nearly a wide open class and a really good class to run it. the downside is that there are people that have race only cars that are in this class. there is a lot of mods that you can do. from there you move to FSP (F stock prepared). This is a class where the only limit is that you have to be street legal.... or close to it. from there you go into either FP (F prepared) or SM (street modified). just depends on what you do.

Once you get to the event and have your car registered you will want to get the car ready. take everything out or your car. spare tire, jack, any tools, floor mats, and anything else that can move while you drive. now. give the car a good once over. check all the fluids and generaly make sure that everything is tight and won't cause you to break down. next up is tire pressure. this is where you need to just get in the seat and figure out what works for you. you will want to have a lot of pressure to keep the sidewalls from rolling over. this also depends on the tires too. the front tires need a lot of pressure to keep the tires stiff during braking/corning. the back tires are what you get to play with depending on your likes. you still want a lot of pressure but you can adjust it up more to allow the back end to break loose or down a little for it to stick to the ground.

Once your car is prepped go walk the course. you want to walk it AT LEAST 2 times. if your a novice find someone who looks lie they know what they are doing and ask them to walk the course with you. unless they are busy with the car they will walk with you. as you are walking try to picture which lines you will take as you drive. keep in mind that when your walking the course your going 3 mph and when your driving you are going 30-40mph. but think of your lines and try to get a solid mental image of the track in your head. if you have time find someone else and walk it with them looking at thier lines. just remember that the vettes will take different lines as the elantra because of the RWD.

Now comes the drivers meeting and the real fun starts. The drivers meeting is a way to get everyone together and let you know the rules of the event. this is a really good spot to ask any questions you might have. depending on the event you will either work next or drive next. working the event is a good way to get a good view of the course. just be aware of what is going on. keep your eyes on the car that is on course. and let the other people at your worker station that your a novice and someone will tell you what to do.

Next is your race. here is where the fun begins. make sure the car is warmed up and ready to go. as you pull up make sure your helmet is on, seatbelt is tight, and your drivers window is down. something i was told today and it made a difference is adjust your seatback forward a notch or too. it makes a difference but i'm not really sure why. now lean over and turn off the radio and the traction control if you have it. when you come up to the starting line someone will inch you up and tell you when to start. here you have anywhere from 30 seconds to a min. quickly run through the first few turns in your head. the starter will tell you to go. its not like drag racing. you don't have to go as soon as he tells you. rev up the engine a little and dump the clutch. or take a deap breath and just go.

After your run get back in line, take off your helmet and relax for a bit. maybe think about what you can do differently or ask questions if you really messed up. or just talk to the people near you and see where your times are.

Ok Midwest peps, This event is one of the best all year. Fvscc(Fox valley Sports car club) and Madison sport car club are doing a joint event. They have been doing this for a few years now. If you have ever wanted to do a true parking lot autox this is the one to do. It being held at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Wi. I will be running this event. Our club is more fun based than being competitive. We do judge, and are willing to help. Don't be afraid, bring your car out and have some fun. Would love to see some of you out there. If you have any Question feel free to ask me.

If you were wondering what the "Timeslip" link is in our header, I think you race guys will be happy. Basically, it's a place to post your best 60ft, 1/8 mile, 1/4 mile times and hp & torque from the dyno's you've done... and more. You can even post photos of your dyno results and actual timeslips. Let's get this thing started. I really think it will be important and interesting to compare various cars. A nice features is that the Times area will link right to your Garage as well.

After talking with J-Son at the 7-9-2006 race at the Honeywell plant in Fostoria, Ohio he made a suggestion that we start posting our vehicle setup's for each race and how we did and what we think about the setup and what we would or might do differently.

What I want to do is have a standard set of questions that are answered in each post. This way we can be systematic about the information we provide each other and help us all interpret it. Also each post should contain as much info about the track, conditions, driver condition (i.e. tired, psyched out, on top of your game, etc...).

In addition, I do not want to have ANY unnecessary posts in this thread. All questions or replies should be specific in nature and have a direct reference to the setup of the car and questions or suggestions about it. Try to think out your questions as much as possible and include as many of them in a single post as possible. In answering replies please answer as many of the questions as possible.

If you choose to participate in this thread you must follow the rules I have laid out. It can be very informative and very useful and is intended to be a resource not a chat room. I will delete posts that do not meet the criteria.

Below are the questions that should be answered. If you think some should be added or deleted please PM me right away. I think we should try to answer them numerically as they appear below so they can be easily referenced when reading your narrative. You can copy and paste the questions into your post and answer them. Most of the questions could be copy and pasted after each race since things like 'coilovers' will remain the same. However make sure you notate any changes, i.e. ride height.

1. Class2. Heat run in3. One or two drivers4. Number of runs5. Tire Temperatures6. Did you cool the tires between each run7. Lap times for your class (at least from yours to faster)8. Each of your lap times9. Include and any fun runs and their times

Observations, Impressions, and Conclusions

Tell what you think and how you felt about the runs. Be as specific as possible about each lap and what changes you made to the car from run to run. Speculate on what changes you might make for the next race and why.

So the closest I came to selling the Black Beast was a scammer on craigslist. It's still in the garage taking up space but I've started thinking: the car is paid for, and I've wanted to go road racing forever.

Enter the Improved Touring category, an email to SCCA, and the thinking that perhaps I could build it into a race car. As of right now, the XD isn't classified, but I'm figuring it will fall into ITB. I don't think we can hang with the Neons in ITA.

Improved Touring gives me a lot of leeway as to things to make the car handle better. I can install coilovers and put bigger bars on front and rear. I can run 225s, if I'm reading the rules right.

I didnt take most of these, but just wanted to share them with you guys. Had 3 autox's this year. Lots of fun is had, and will ran another full season next year. With one more race this year, im done with the modding for now. Need to save money for the volvo.

So Sunday I had my first experience at SCCA and it was a blast for me. My fastest time was 62 seconds which I find pretty good being my first time. The thing about it though was my car liked to oversteer some which didn't really make sense to me (or those I went there with). Suspension mods are tien lowering springs and KYB struts and front and rear strut bars. If anyone might know a thing or 2 about why I'd like to know.

IS300 autoCAIcat back exhaustmay have more, I didn't get much more info than that....2 passengers

first video I get the hit from a 40 roll. second video was just a "1,2,3 GO" race, so I still go a little bit of a hit. lost both times but put up a great fight. guy was impressed at the Hyundai. ALL VIDEOS SHOT IN MEXICO.

Thanks to Bobzilla always recommending Hyundia on another board I frequent, we stated looking into them and when it was time to buy we picked out a 2012 Elantra. We both love the car, it's my wife's car but we take it on trips so I get to drive it occasionally.

Anyway I drive an older BMW that is in the process of getting prepared for paint. This car is eventually going to become more focused on autocross and less on daily driving.

I 've been keeping an eye on prospective replacements for dd duty with a slight twist. I really want to try my hand at rallycross.

So how would an older model Elantra handle the occasional rallycross? I would have to travel a good bit to attend so that would limit my participation. So the main focus of the car will be getting decent fuel mileage on my 60 mile per day commute. I would still have the BMW just in case something breaks on the car at an event.

I was just wondering what everyones thought about this is? Also any first hand rallycross experience would be greatly appreciated.

incredible price for a fun and competitive car. only for serious track guys however (although it looks like it could be made street legal again).

i saw this on a local board and remembered a discussion (argument some would say) i had with bob about making an elantra competitive for auto-x and how much money you`d have to dump in. here`s a great solution if you wanted to stay with the elantra platform, albiet for road courses.

Despite my first post about Elantras and being competitive in Autocrossing I have decided to take the plunge and do an autocross. I attended one yesterday (as a spectator) and saw the normal group of rodded up little hondas and the never ending flock of Miatas along with a highly modified Fiat X-19 running in E-mod, I think. I also saw people to talk with that I had not seen in 25 years when my wife and I were big into autocross. I was thinking the wrong way about doing an autocross, I was thinking like a early 20s person who could only be interested in winning and or being in contention for FTD as I once was when I ran my B-Modified BugEye Sprite years ago. I realized that I had forgotten where the fun really was at with all of the talking to and telling of a few lies to a great group of people who have the same interest in cars as I do.

Well, people, next month I will take the aged fire breathing (or perhaps make that still breathing) silver bullet of my 2002 Elantra GT and enter H-Stock. I might not win any trophies, H-O-W-E-V-E-R, that stock big body Volvo Station Wagon that was running H-Stock is in my cross hairs.

I have read where a couple of members autocross their Elantras, I am going to guess that an Elantra would run in the SCCA H-Stock class. I have not autocrossed for a few years, the last time being in 2006 and 2007 when I found that my Scion tC was not all that competitive in H-Stock, having to run against some of the lower powered Hondas and the stock MGs as well as the rear wheel drive celicas. Having driven the 02 Elantra GT for the past seven or eight months I can not believe that it would hold it's own with top flight H-Stock cars. I might take the car to an autocross this year, however, I have no real expectations of being able to compete with the better cars in the class. Not only do I think that there are other quicker cars, but in the current rules, you almost have to have at least 1,500 dollars in special DOT rated racing type tires as well as fairly high dollar shocks.

I am not knocking the Elantra, just giving my opinion. If any of you actively compete in any type of competition please chime in and give your opinion of your car as opposed to those you have to compete against.

I did my first autocross today, hurricane Irene notwithstanding. It was with a local driving club my mechanic told me about. A bit cheaper than SCCA, this was only $40 per event, and that got me 6 runs about 50 seconds each. $40 for under 6 minutes of racing is expensive on a per-minute basis but you hang out with a bunch of gearheads for 5 hours and watch some nice cars get tossed around a cone track. And free drinks and $2 hotdogs.

I was thinking they might cancel the event due to rain... nope, we just raced in moderate rain. Some people liked racing in the rain, particularly new people (it makes for earlier skidding and lower-speed mistakes) and the AWD drivers. I knew an '03 Hyundai Elantra would be an underdog at a racing event but wow, those were some quick cars. The other slowest-looking cars were an old Neon and an even older GTI. The rest were Minis, Miatas, S2000s, WRXs, Evos, Corvettes... even two AC Cobras. We pitied them because it was raining, they had 400hp RWD cars and no roofs. I haven't looked at the results yet, I focused on trying to be smooth and not hit any cones, which I didn't. I was told the inside rear wheel was half a foot of the ground in tight corners. I know my lap times were about 55 seconds, then 53, 54, 54, 52 and 52, which is a nice progression. One of the 54's was with the A/C on and surprisingly one of the 52s was also with the A/C on (it was fogging up quickly between runs). Most people were in the 48-49 range, albeit with faster cars.

My problem was mainly hand position on the steering wheel and looking only 2 sets of cones ahead instead of 3. The car's problem was mostly low speed understeer. The faster curves around 30mph+ were not badly balanced, but the slow 10mph hairpins it just plowed if I carried too much speed.

So I have been thinking about this for a while, and I'm still not sure how well this will go over with the finance manager. BUT..... I've had a vision of Porky gutted, caged and prepped for SCCA Club Racing in Improved Touring A (ITA) class. I think the stiff structure, the simplicity of it's suspension, the ruggedness of the car overall would do well in this sport.

WHAT IT WOULD TAKE

It would need to be gutted and caged for obvious reasons, a firesupression system, race seat and harness and a door net. suspension would need a set of Koni inserts and some ground control coilovers with 7" race springs. Upper pillowball mounts to get complete camber/caster adjustment, rear lower adjustable arms. Rear disc swap and some Hawk Blue pads and Motul fluid with stainless lines. Engine would be cleaned, head milled, block decked, light port/polish and a 3-angle valve job. 4-1 header, 2.25" exhaust with no cats, a magnaflow 2.5" straight through muffler and a side turnout in front of hte passenger rear tire All this controlled with a Megasquirt EM system, hopefully putting out somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-160 at the front wheels and about 2500lbs with driver.

Now, will it happen? Likely not. But this is my last dream for the car. It's more likely to spend the next 5-6 years being pounded into the ground as a super reliable daily driver instead. With the Swift, the wife was not real receptive to the idea at all!

So, Sunday after getting the Swift dyno'd and seeing those massive numbers, we took the Elantra out for an SCCA Sanctioned Road Rally. Having never done one before and not knowing what the hell we were doing, one of my co-workers/friends said he'd navigate if I provided a car. Both being noobs we went in blind. Think: Scavenger hunt on wheels, through areas of the state you'd never be caught dead in. Tons of fun!

This one soent about 90% of the actual Rally on gravel roads, winding through backwoods areas putting us through/over about a half dozen covered bridges. We put about 250 miles on the car total from noon to 7pm and had a ball. My navigator had his nice camera mount and cam corder up on the windshield, so I should have a vid soon enough to share.

All I have to say, you gotta try it. It's a ball. I'll get the vid link up as soon as he gets them uploaded.

Ok here it is what you have been waiting for.Vids from me racing my stocks Elantra on a frozen lake.Oh i am running all season tires.Its not the fast car but i had a blast driving.It was shot on a 6.1mp Kodak point and shot, so sorry about the shitty quality, it all i have.

Perhaps there is another string on this topic but I was just wondering if the Elantra / Avante has been run in a competitive compact car class outside of North America. I love the touring classes and in Japan, they have the Super Taikyu ST4 class for 2.0L and below FWD, but I'm looking to find one where an Elantra / Avante, competes. I'm mostly interested in the HD models. I have read bits and pieces of an Elantra racing in a GT series in Beijing but, I haven't been able to check out any pics on that event and I know that Chinese Elantras are different from the rest of world's Elantras (in looks anyway). I'm looking for info , pics, reading material, specs, stats, or anything I can find. Can someone post up some links or point me in the right direction? Thanks.

Ok so i hit the track again on Sunday.It was fun but a had a issue with the car i hope you can help me with.When i am in a slalom it fells like my power steering goes out.The fluid was replaced and the belt was adjusted correctly.Do you think that the pump cant keep up with how fast i am steering,or do i need a underdrive pulley so it can keep up?If that is the issue would it put me out of Hs?Its not a big deal if it dose.I had some one take a in car vid of one of my runs, i will post a link when he gets it up.Thanks

Yep... the retired car is coming out one last time. This Sunday, June 21st in Ft Wayne. Making the trek up for a trophy raid with out neighbors to the north. Since it's Father's Day I am having my father co-drive.

I was planning on taking the Swift up on the trailer, but the trailer has no lights and a few of the boards are just too rotten. So, since we're leaving for our free cruise in 2 weeks we just didn;t have the cash flow (and me the time) to get it ready and tow it up and back with the truck.....So she's back. One last trip down memory lane.

So anyone in Northern Indiana, southern Michigan come out and play with us!

so has any one passed some one just for the sake of getting that little bit of a thrill you get from pushing your car to the limit or is it just me being a twenty year old kid and wishing i could do that for a living